Tuesday, November 01, 2016

To those of you who do not know (probably quite a few), Ellia Bisker is a singer/songwriter. She has her own group, Sweet Soubrette, and is one of the duo Charming Disaster(with Jeff Morris of Kotorino).

Charming Disaster, upon being asked who they were: Thanks for asking about our origin story! Jeff was grown in a laboratory
vat by a mad scientist experimenting with robotics and ectoplasm in a
small suburb of New York City. Ellia was created accidentally by an
alchemist attempting to transform lead into gold in another suburb of
New York City, 100 years ago. We met thanks to the technology of time
travel/astral projection and currently we both reside in Brooklyn, NY,
not far from where we started in life (“life”?).

I love these people.

Back to Ellia: she is unique in many ways, but the aspect I've so far appreciated most is her ability to understand others when she puts herself in their shoes. Here follows an interview she gave to Feminist Wednesday back in 2014:

“All That Glitters,” from Sweet Soubrette’s second album,
Days and Nights, is so much fun to perform live — not just because of
its lively upbeat energy (also, hand claps) but because I get to embody a
character who is so anathema to my own personal values: the gold
digger. Though not exactly a femme fatale,
she is nevertheless a star member of Sweet Soubrette’s collection of Bad
Women archetypes, and there’s something oddly liberating about putting
on her persona instead of just judging her or objecting to her existence
— maybe because my own sense of independence doesn’t easily acknowledge
any secret wish to be taken care of. I think a lot of strong women
struggle with the opposing desires of wanting to be taken care of and
wanting to take care of ourselves, and this song allowed me to explore
that a little.

It was inspired in part by a woman I knew briefly a few
years ago, a friend of a friend whom I didn’t know very well but heard a
lot about, and she sort of fascinated me; everything I heard about her
got under my skin. She was vain, obsessed with her looks, beautiful in a
self-conscious way, and she had exploited that beauty: the rich older
doctor she had met while waitressing in Texas was now putting her
through school and bankrolling her apartment in Manhattan. I had never
known anyone with an actual sugar daddy before. It offended my feminist
sensibilities, to say the least. I thought the transactional gender
roles she had bought into were not only retrograde and politically
incorrect but downright unsavory. I started writing All That Glitters as
a satire, almost as a dig. I imagined her hearing it and recognizing
herself.

But something surprising happened when I was writing it: I
found myself becoming unexpectedly sympathetic toward the character I
had created. I found myself giving the woman who inspired her a little
more credit too, for being more than just an opportunistic pretty face.
In fact, she was intelligent, ambitious, and resourceful; and whatever I
thought of her methods, she had used the tools available to her not
only to survive, but to pave the way for a future in which she could do
more than trade on her looks. Adela, wherever you are, this song taught
me not to underestimate you.
—Ellia Bisker

Whether you agree with Adela's lifestyle choices or not, the idea of being able to really grasp someone else's perspective through songwriting (or any medium) is pretty cool, and Ellia does it well.

Tuesday, August 23, 2016

FINALLY this book is coming out! I have been sort of gently nag-nudging the photographers for a couple years now about doing a book, and IT IS HERE! Observe:

Is this not glorious? I love these people. They're funny and awesome. We get along smashingly. They've taken some of the most beautiful pictures I've ever seen, at least of dancers. Apples and oranges with Hubble images and etc, you know.

One of my favorite dancers, Isabella Boylston, American Ballet Theater

Miriam Miller, New York City Ballet

Misty Copeland and Alexandre Hammoudi, American Ballet Theater

And a video featuring Isabella Boylston. I love this little short film. It's just fun and pretty. Enjoy!

Thursday, August 18, 2016

Juliet Landau, whom some readers may recall played the ever lovely and insane Drusilla on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, is producing the crowdfunded movie of the post's heading: A Place Among the Undead. It will involve a series of interviews with people most deeply involved with the vampire genre, along with delving into vampire mythology and as it has grown through the ages; basically a vast documentary regarding the subject. I very much want to see it!

I finally got around to taking pictures of myself in my UNDEAD shirt from the crowdfunding (sadly with no fangs because the damn things have vanished and I cannot find them anywhere for the life of me), but here they are:

In which I discover I've been turned into the undead, which for some reason strikes me as creepier in greyscale.

Clearly I have issues.

Definitely dubious about this whole Being Undead thing.

Getting the hang of it.

Yep. Totally on board.

I already pre-apologized to my sister for being this sort of aunt-to-be. I'm going to mess up her kid. In the best possible way. Go rock your undead, y'all.

Wednesday, August 17, 2016

My friend Brynn on gaming: You
probably remember from Morrowind that Elder Scrolls games never really
seem to end, there's always more to do, so I don't like to play too many
of them at once, or I feel like I'm living in some kind of comatose
limbo and I'm going to wake up and discover it's the year 4021 and I've
evolved into a rodentcycle.

I nearly had to lie down from the sheer correctness of this. I love my friends. I don't have many, but the ones I do have are full of awesome.